Special Purpose Hymns
Some very special ‘progressive’ hymns I have picked up along the way.
Permission to use must be obtained from the authors. At the time of listing (3/2009) these hymns were not published in a different medium and under different copyright arrangements.
Contacts:
• Shirley Murray - serenam@paradise.net.nz
• Andrew Pratt - andrewpratt@btconnect.com
• Norman Habel - nhabel@esc.net.au
1. Bush(Brush)fire (2009)
“Now thank we all our God” (Tune: ‘Nun Danket’)
Now thank we all our God
for lives beloved and cherished,
the brave who faced the flames,
the young and old who perished,
for those who fight the fires
that sear our country’s soul,
for all who give relief
to comfort and make whole.
No tears can stem this grief
through outback, town or city,
yet as disaster strikes,
we share a common pity,
where hearts and hands can help
to build or recreate,
our nation stands as one
to mourn our people's fate.
Our lives are held in trust,
O God of our believing,
and we who still are spared,
owe duty to the grieving,
for everyone is kin
when all can feel this pain,
as families are gone
and shattered ones remain.
Now thank we all our God
for courage meeting danger,
when selfless spirits fight
for mate or helpless stranger,
when wind and bushfire flare
and terror grips our faith,
compassion keeps us strong,
through tragedy and death. (© Shirley Murray 2009)
“Black Saturday” (Tune: ‘Amazing Grace’)
Amazing flames that scorch the sky,
Like hurricanes of fire,
Alive with eucalyptus oil,
Are roaring higher and higher.
These swirling balls of oil ablaze,
That leap o’er trees at will,
Descend on fields and flock and homes,
Explode and bum and kill.
Where's God in all this swirling ash?
Where's God in all this pain?
Awaiting somewhere in the sky
To one day send some rain?
The face of God is burnt and black;
The hands of God are red!
The God we know in Jesus Christ
Is bleeding with the dead.
Is this, O God, the shock we need
To face our life ahead,
Adjusting to a Greenhouse Age
When we must share our bread?
Christ, show us now your hands and feet,
The burns across you side
To show you suffer with the Earth,
By fires crucified! (©Norman Habel, 2009)
2. Tsunami (2005), Storms/Cyclones (2005, 2008)
“We understand tectonic plates” (Tune: 588 MHB, Sheltered Dale 86 86 86)
We understand tectonic plates
that move beneath our feet.
We understand that powerful waves
make rivers in the street.
But when we try to centre God
our sense is incomplete.
To say creation points to God
will never make real sense
except within a frame of faith,
outside it brings offence.
Our claim is more than paradox
within this present tense.
And so we struggle with the facts
that contradict belief
until we find a greater truth
we never find relief.
Reason and revelation clash
and die in disbelief.
We honour God for all that is
and all that is to be.
We may not understand God's ways,
until eternity.
But love is stronger than belief
and faith can help us see. © Andrew Pratt, 2004
“When every source of hope is torn” (Tune: Abingdon)
When every source of hope is torn
by storms we strain to understand;
when children queue for all their needs,
and water drowns out fertile land,
we cry to you O God in prayer
and wonder if your love is there.
Amid the cyclone’s aftermath,
where fallen trees and shattered lives
are witness to this tragedy,
we pray that human strength survives,
while children weep and grown men cry,
where homes are gone and thousands die.
For mile on mile the floods are seen,
with roads and bridges swept away,
while people struggle, bleed or mourn,
while hoping for a better day.
God show us how to help and heed
the cry of neighbours in such need. © Andrew Pratt 5/5/2008
“Homes that once held joy and laughter” (Tune: 87 87 87 87)
Homes that once held joy and laughter,
faces we no longer see,
all are smeared by this disaster,
torn by common tragedy.
Death has come, and faith is broken,
love has little courage left,
God we cry in desolation,
hold us as we stand bereft.
As we stand by one another,
fractured by this common grief,
with your grace and love enfold us,
hold us, heal our disbelief;
hold us crippled by this sorrow,
hold us till the crying clears,
hold us through each frail tomorrow,
through this cavalcade of fears.
Here amid this desecration,
mid the wreckage of our lives,
where despair hangs like a shadow,
hardly any hope survives.
All our wealth, our worldly riches,
cannot stem this sense of pain;
so, confronted by this horror,
God, give grace to build again. © Andrew Pratt 10/9/2005
“Sometimes we feel the utter loss” (Tune: 88 88)
Sometimes we feel such utter loss
confronted by the world's despair,
the scenes of human agony,
of lives destroyed, of absent care.
When Jesus touched a broken man,
despised because of leprosy,
he felt his hurt and shared his pain,
and challenged our hypocrisy.
Yet still we watch and wring our hands,
avoid responsibility,
but if we felt another's pain,
our lives would act in sympathy.
So while we share this agony
half understanding pained despair,
O God give loving empathy,
at least enable active prayer. (c) Andrew Pratt 10/9/2005
"In every face w see the pain" (Tune: 'Kingsfold', 86 86D. 585 TiS)
In every face
we see the pain
of grief and
human loss;
the hell we
cannot understand,
we cannot
count the cost.
Beneath the
sea the cooling earth,
had risen,
ruptured, torn.
Creation
raised its voice and cried,
a tidal wave was born.
And was God mid-wife at the birth
confounding
our belief?
Or is our God
outside the frame,
removed from
human grief?
For ages we
have tried and failed
to understand
this flaw,
that God
should let such evil rise,
while mixing love and awe.
If God is here where bodies rise
in piles along
the shore,
where is the
mercy, grace and love
of which we
should be sure?
We plead for
love, we long for grace,
to help us,
where they fell,
to grasp the
reason for this pain,
this cavalcade of hell.
Then give us
strength to rise again,
enlivened by
your hope,
and for the
present show your love
and give us
grace to cope.
God come and
join your people in
the centre of
their loss.
If you are real
then show yourself
upon this present cross. © Andrew Pratt
3. Earthquakes (China, Peru, Chile)
“Chinese earthquake” (Tune: 88 88)
If God created all we see
then ours is still a timeless cry;
we cannot understand God's sense;
we ask again the reason why.
Was this prefigured by a cross,
this site of human agony;
the tumbled timbers, broken walls,
where people struggle to be free?
This cannot be the way of God,
yet God is in this quaking mess,
is in the people crying out
in pain and terminal distress.
God seeks the dying, nail pierced hands
reach deep within this grief and loss.
Our every word or touch of love
speaks of the gift of grace and cross. ©Andrew Pratt 16/8/2007
“If God created all we see” (Tune: 88 88)
If God created all we see
then ours is still a timeless cry;
we cannot understand God's sense;
we ask again the reason why.
Was this prefigured by a cross,
this site of human agony;
the tumbled timbers, broken walls,
where people struggle to be free?
This cannot be the way of God,
yet God is in this quaking mess,
is in the people crying out
in pain and terminal distress.
God seeks the dying, nail pierced hands
reach deep within this grief and loss,
and every word or touch of love
speaks of the gift of grace and cross. ©Andrew Pratt 16/8/2007
“Chilean earthquake” (Tune: “Gonfalon Royal”, 88 88, 332 TiS)
Is this the judgement of
a God,
a God who wind and waves
obey?
Where is compassion,
grace and love
when earthquakes, death
and fear hold sway?
Here we have watched in
helplessness,
here we have wondered,
'are we right?'
What is the logic of this
loss?
Grace is removed from
human sight.
We know this world is
finely set,
this globe is tuned for
life and birth.
Tectonic plates that
drift and shift
create the chance of life
on earth.
There is no other way to
be.
Our God of power, God of cross,
knows human pain and
shares our fear
in frail communion and
loss (©Andrew
Pratt 28/2/2010)
4. War, Remembrance
“God is dying with the children” (Tune: “Loving Spirit’, 87 87)
God is dying with the children,
sunlight filters through the haze.
Actions of retaliation
shatter, damage, scar and craze.
Blind to this annihilation,
should we simply wring our hands?
Is the carnage that we witness
something mercy understands?
Should we pray that God will hear us,
bring an end to human strife?
But the choice is ours for action:
we should choose, choose now, choose life.
So our prayers are prayers for courage,
facing those who maim and kill,
standing with the weak and helpless,
as we seek to do God’s will.
We would join the wounded healer,
we would risk the rage of friends,
living out the love of Jesus,
knowing love that never ends. © Andrew Pratt 31/7/2006
“Hymn for Anzac Day” (Tune: ‘Anzac’, 10 10 10 10, Colin Gibson)
Honour the dead, our country's fighting brave,
honour our children left in foreign grave,
where poppies blow and sorrow seeds her flowers,
honour the crosses marked forever ours.
Weep for the places ravaged by our blood,
weep for the young bones buried in the mud,
weep for the powers of violence and greed,
weep for the deals done in the name of need.
Honour the brave whose conscience was their call,
answered no bugle, went against the wall,
suffered in prisons of contempt and shame,
branded as cowards, in our country's name.
Weep for the waste of all that might have been,
weep for the cost that war has made obscene,
weep for the homes that ache with human pain,
weep that we ever sanction war again.
Honour the dream for which our nation bled,
held now in trust to justify the dead,
honour their vision on this solemn day:
peace known in freedom, peace the only way. (© Shirley Murray, 2005)